Put a layer of sponge cake at the bottom of a glass dish. Cut up a tinned pine-apple (get the pine-apple chunks if possible) and fill dish, first pouring a little of the juice over the cake. Melt a very little agar-agar in the rest of the juice. (Allow half the 1/4 oz. to a pint of juice.) Pour over the mixture. Serve when cold.
Line a pudding-basin with short crust. Mix together in another basin some good cane golden syrup, enough bread-crumbs to thicken it, and some grated lemon rind. Put a layer of this mixture at the bottom of the pudding-basin, cover with a layer of pastry, follow with a layer of the mixture, and so on, until the basin is full. Top with a layer of pastry, tie on a floured pudding-cloth, and boil or steam for 3 hours.
Put a layer of sponge cake at the bottom of a glass dish. Better still, use sections of good home-made jam sandwich. Pour hot boiled custard on to this until the cake is barely covered. Blanch some sweet almonds, and cut into strips. Stick these into the top of the cake until it somewhat resembles the back of a hedgehog! Serve when cold.
Cakes need a hot oven for the first half-hour.
If possible, they should not be moved from one shelf to another, but the oven should be cooled gradually by opening the ventilators or lowering the gas. A moderate oven is needed to finish the cooking.
All fruit cakes (unless weighing less than 1 lb.) need to be baked from 1-1/2 to 2 hours. The larger the cake the slower should be the baking.
The cake tins should be lined with greased paper.
If a gas oven is used, stand the cake tin on a sand tin (see Cold Water Bread).
If the cake becomes sufficiently brown on top before it is cooked through, cover with a greased paper to prevent burning.
To test if done, dip a clean knife into hot water. Thrust it gently down the centre of cake. If done, the knife will come out clean and bright.
1/4 lb. butter, 1/4 lb. castor sugar, 6 ozs. flour, 2 eggs.
Half butter and half nutter gives just as good results and is more economical.
Beat together the butter and sugar to a cream. Whisk the eggs to a stiff froth and add. Stir in the flour gently. Mix well. Add a little milk if mixture is too stiff. This makes a Madeira Cake.
For other varieties, mix with the flour 1 dessertspoon caraway seeds for Seed Cake; 2 tablespoons desiccated cocoanut for Cocoanut Cake; 6 ozs. candied cherries chopped in halves for Cherry Cake; 6 ozs. sultanas and the grated rind of 1 lemon for Sultana Cake; the grated yellow part of 2 lemon rinds for Lemon Cake.